AMERICA’S ONLY WORLD WAR I DFC
On June 14, 2017, the 242nd birthday of the U.S. Army, a ceremony was held at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall in Virginia to pay belated honors to a man who had played a brief but significant role in developing the U.S. Army Air Service during World War I. That airman, James Ely Miller, received the Distinguished Flying Cross, an award that didn’t exist when he became the first member of the USAS to be killed in combat nearly a century ago.
Born in New York City on March 24, 1883, to a prominent merchant and banking family, Miller attended Yale University as a legacy,
